Tag Archives: Live

Five years ago I met the man of my dreams. In fact, as time has passed, I realized that he has surpassed the man of my dreams on so many levels. Is it possible to feel as if we just met yesterday yet also feel like I’ve known this person my whole life?

When John and I met, we both felt all sorts of strong emotions that neither of us had ever felt before. After all this time, those strong emotions have gone away… but only to become fiercer, more intense and stronger than ever before!

When we first met, we were young. I was finishing up university and John was three weeks into his career. We happened to work for sister companies in the same building downtown and only three flours separated us. Since I was still finishing up school, I only worked part time but the days that I did work we would each leave our houses at the perfect time so that we could meet before work at our special spot and walk the few blocks together hand in hand. We would meet for lunch at least once a week and our coworkers would both make comments to us about how cute we were when they saw us together. We still meet each other for lunch once a week, even if that meant that a 12 block walk or a train ride just to see each other for twenty minutes and for that midday smooch. Since day one, we’ve never been able to get enough of each other and I’m so happy to say that we still can’t.

We have gone through so many life changes together and I can’t imagine what our life will look like when we get to a decade. Over the past five years, between the two of us there have been five moves, five jobs, three vehicles, two countries and a puppy! There have been ups and downs, positives and negatives but the one thing that has never wavered has been the love and respect for one another.

Although our looks and hair have changed a bit over the past five years, the way we feel about each other surely has not. We are celebrating this weekend by doing five things that we have never done before… today we kickstarted the “events” by going some place new for lunch.

Sticking with the “five” theme, here are five photos for each year that we’ve been together to highlight some of our favourite memories together:

A Hem – now that I have your attention and those extremely clever dorky puns out of the way, I have a story to tell you.

Most girls at one time or another in the life learn how to sew. Well maybe not sew, but at least learn how to sew a button back on or to hem a pair of pants. Maybe even hand sew a small hole in fabric closed.

But not me! When I told this to my Mom, she didn’t believe me that I never learned how to sew. She was a little bit horrified. My Mom used to sew all Halloween costumes for my sister and I, and I remember in junior high when my sister went on an apron sewing spree. But somehow, I slipped through the ropes of learning how to sew. I never took a Home Economics course in any of my school years, nor did I ever have any strong desire to learn how to sew or to do anything girly at one stage in my life. I was a bit of a tomboy.

At my first corporate job, there was a woman who I worked with who was sick of seeing me in pants that were just a little bit too long. Finally, one day she cracked and let out a small outburst:

“Didn’t your Mother ever teach you to sew!?”

I would have loved to see what my face must have looked like, because she then followed up with “Oh my gosh… what if you don’t have a Mother!” She went on a tangent and felt terrible, but in return she hemmed any and all pairs of pants for me during my time at that job. Thank you again!

John would make little comments to me here and there when there was a small tear in something that needed to be sewed up or when I would pay a tailor to sew fallen off buttons back onto my peacoat. I brushed his comments off, but don’t worry Honey… I heard them all.

Since moving to a new country where I am not allowed to work, I initially felt pressure (not from my husband) to be THE ULTIMATE HOUSEWIFE! Sweet John would tell me that I already was the ultimate housewife, but we all know that he is biased. I was convinced that an ULTIMATE HOUSEWIFE needed to at least know how to turn on a sewing machine.

I looked up sewing classes and did my due diligent. For some reason or another, I didn’t want to learn to sew at a place like Michael’s. Like I am in most things in life, I decided that if I was going to learn how to sew than I was going to go all in. Sew (c’mon had to sneak one more in there) after many hours of researching sewing courses, I found the perfect one where I would learn to sew. It was in Uptown, which I had initially confused with Old Town so I thought that it was close by. Turns out, it wasn’t at all… but I got to meet lots of strange characters on the train commuting back and forth.

The class that I had chosen was taught by a high end fashion designer who sewed his own creations for his clients. He did everything from bridal to leather jackets, so I figured if he couldn’t teach me to sew than nobody could. I registered online for my sewing classes and received an email saying that there will be a follow up email with all necessary information. The week before my classes were about to start, I began emailing and phoning the guy to ask for the list so that I could pick up anything that I may require. I didn’t hear back from him.

The night before my class was scheduled to begin, I was in a tithy. I figured that I would just show up empty handed the next day, but then at 7pm that night I FINALLY received an email from him saying everything that I needed. There was a lot and I didn’t know what half of the stuff on the list was, so I panicked! John was still at work, I couldn’t drive myself (no license remember?) to a store to pick up the stuff on my own, so I did what any logical woman would do. I called my parents and cried. Boo Hoo.

The sewing store closed at 9pm and God knew if John would make it home before then, so I was panicked, flustered, pissed off and lonely. I lucked out and John got home at 8:15pm and immediately drove my ass to the store to go on the hunt for shit neither of had any clue about. One of the items on the list was “muslin” – It took everything in my power to make sure I pronounced that word correctly when I asked the employee where/what muslin was. We gathered most of the stuff and went home. John was so nice about the whole situation… He’s seriously the best!

Now, most people sew a pillow case or an apron as their first project when they are learning to sew. Not me… oh no no no!!! I decided that my first project was going to be a freakin’ WRAP DRESS! One that I could hopefully wear when I finished. Go big or go home, right? You going to give me grieve about not knowing how to sew on a button – I’ll show you, I’ll sew a gosh darn wrap dress!!!! (Side note: I’m not competitive at all.)

My sewing classes were 3 hours classes once a week for ten weeks. My very first day, I was cocky because for some reason I thought that being naturally athletic would translate well into being a natural sewer. I asked the guy “So it’s going to take me thirty whole hours to sew one single dress!?” I was baffled and was certain that I was going to finish in half that time. Nope… it took me a total of probably 45 HOURS! 45 freaking’ hours… let that sink in.

My 45 hours in that sewing class were interesting. There were a few classes were I was the only female and also the only straight person. I thought that my dreams were coming true and that I could finally be surrounded by my new found gay best friends. Except they wanted NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!!!! They were too busy flirting with each other. I thought that it was awesome, until I realized that I was such an enormous outcast in my sewing class.

In one of my sewing classes, I met a Russian girl. I thought that maybe we could bond over being foreigners and such, but quickly realized that we had nothing to bond over. She bragged to me about how she received a green card by marrying an American and swiftly divorcing him. She then went on to brag about how she is known as the fashionista among all of her friends and they all look to her for new trends. I threw up in my mouth a little bit.

There were also a few people who constantly pestered me about poutine or who would want to argue with me about how disgusting poutine was. They acted as if they were the poutine champions of the world. Finally somebody asked what was in poutine and I heard somebody say “cheese, french fries, and mayo.” I almost lost it at that point… here I’ve been listening to some dorks go on about poutine and they don’t even know what the hell it is!? C’MON!!!! So I specified that traditional poutine was “french fries, gravy and cheese curds” – and no not cheese slices, but CURDS!

The actual sewing aspect was A LOT MORE tedious and annoying than I ever would have imagined. Never did I realize how key patience were in the sewing world. Perhaps that was why we had never met before? It took my 15 minutes every single time to put the damn thread through the “eye” of the needle on the sewing machine. I would have to get down on one knee, close an eyeball, tilt my head and chest slightly to the right, and hope that my wood pecker hand movements would eventually put the damn thread through the hole. And that was the start of class every single time.

I had no idea how much cutting and pinning and ironing was involved in sewing. And it takes so freakin’ long! Every time after sewing class I would tell John what I had just spent the last 5 hours doing and I always felt like I should be able to tell him that I did more than just cut and iron. Props to all you sewers – you are patient people.

On my very last class the instructor (who was totally, unbelievably strange by the way… but also nice) was talking to me about how he was getting ready to turn the big 4-0. He kept going on and on and on about it, and I would just smile politely or make an “uh huh” noise when it felt natural. He was still going on about turning forty, and had come over to sit REALLY close to me to help me with something… like so close our noses were almost touching… when this is what he said to me:

“We’re about the same age, aren’t we!?”

I almost cried on the spot. Sew much for this class I thought….

All of that aside, now that it is all over, I actually think that I might enjoy sewing. I like being able to create something new and after I was finished, I was so proud of myself for creating a wrap dress that I can actually wear. I at least now know where the power switch is on a sewing machine, how to cut fabric properly, I’ve learned sewing terminology, I’ve learned that it’s really annoying to be sewing and realize that your machine isn’t threaded, I’ve learned that the sense of pride you have when it’s all over is worth all the pin marks in your finger pads. I hope that one day I’ll sew my own children their own Halloween costumes, don’t hold me to that though.

Ironically, through my whole entire 45 hours of sewing class, I was never taught how to sew a button on… but that’s what tailors in our condo lobby are for, right Baby?!

So today is “the 4th” as they call it… The 4th of July! Independence Day! Yabadabadoooooooo!!!!!!

Might be my favourite building of all in Chicago

It’s interesting, because although neither of us are actually American, we are both so excited to celebrate this day with everyone else! The love of this country is so contagious, therefore we decided to come up with a list of some of our favorite things of the US.

Beware, that this list will likely have a common theme. We both love food, and being in Chicago, we love food EVEN MORE!!!! If we both didn’t care about health, we would easily tip the scale at a joint 1,000 pounds. They say that the way to a man’s heart is through food, but screw that, it’s the way to my heart too! AMERICA YOU HAVE WON MY HEART OVER WITH YOUR DELIIOUS DELICACIES!!!!

And now, the much anticipated list…

1. Beer. Canada, you have some serious competition. Not only does beer cost way less here, but the selection, the variety, the pictures on your bottles, the silly names (Hoptimus Prime and Flying Dog…. Who doesn’t want to drink a Flying Dog?!) keep us going back for more. American Beer has got us refreshed, relaxed and ready to rock!

2. Patriotism. There is something to be said about the love that Americans have for their country. It’s so infectious that us, Non-Americans, feel proud too! In Canada, it is more of a humble approach, but sometimes doesn’t it just feel good to shout your love from a rooftop to tell all the world?!

3. A dollar goes a long way here… There is $1 gelato at the nicest grocery store we have ever been to in our lives (the grocery store has a pianist, if that’s not fancy then I don’t know what is!) There is $1 iced coffee at Dunkin Donuts that are so enormous that you’ll be caffeinated for the entire week. Really, what more could you want for a buck!?

4. Groceries! Now, we can’t exactly put our finger on what exactly it is, but the fruit and veggies here are so delicious. Everything seems that much fresher, that much juicier (when juicy is wanted… nobody wants a juicy banana), and it is less expensive here too. Bananas cost 33 cents a pound! The cereal selection takes hours to comb through… the US still has Trix, a long lost Canadian love. Essentially, the selection of everything from chocolate bars to yogurt is just remarkable! I love eating Bostom Creme flavoured yogurt in the morning!

5. TV Channels. We only have basic cable, yet we have over 70 high definition channels. That comes at a premium back home.

6. The food portions!!! My double chin has doubled in size since being here. The portions are so enormous that we often share an appetizer and an entrée, and we are both stuffed. One time we ordered a single meal at a BBQ joint and the two of us couldn’t finish it. And we had to be rolled out of there. But that’s another story.

7. Booze in general. It is a vodka lovers paradise here. There are so many flavors here that Canada just isn’t bringing to the table! Like what, you ask? Well, pink lemonade, cinnabon, root beer float, marshmallow, pineapple coconut, kissed caramel, whipped cream… and that’s just the middle shelf at Target! And let’s not allow the magic of being able to purchase said booze at Target go unmentioned.

8. Fireworks!!!! SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! Every single Wednesday and Saturday night there are free fireworks in Chicago. We watch them from the lakeside and it will never, ever, ever get old. In Calgary, we used to pay to watch the Global Fireworks in August, but these fireworks are comparable to that. And they are along a lake. Romance factor kicks in here big time.

9. Movie Theatres! The food and drink selection is absolutely bonkers… you can get booze served to you during your show! Now we are talking… Canada, get on that! There is also ice cream, pizza, nachos, all the candy in the world, a pop machine that offers over 100 flavors (really!?), there is a café inside (you can get Bailey’s from your own personal server and add it your coffee from your own personal Barista!), and even a real dinner entrée (but who wants veggies?!) And to top it off, the butter is SELF SERVE!!! My inner fat girl was mostly thrilled about this… I like my popcorn soupy. Poor John is just learning of this now and that I am the sole reason he deemed our popcorn “absolutely disgusting”. Which translated to my ears as “absolutely delicious”!

10. FREE EVENTS ALL THE TIME!!!!!! There is always so much to do. Always so much to see. Always so much going on. There is always a festival, always something to celebrate…. It is sooo much fun alllllll the time! And there is always food.

BONUS: The peeps! For the most part, everybody has been so welcoming and so friendly! The people here love Canada and they make us feel right at home. A home with larger portions and a larger booze selection.

Why did I start this blog? Read on to learn why and to learn what my secret is...

Where did I get the idea from to start a blog? Funny you should ask. I got the idea at our Going Away Party. I was talking to John’s co-worker’s then fiancé (brother’s step-sister’s cousin… just kidding) who told me that I should write. I asked him “Write about what?!” and he said “Anything, just write”. A Surgeon, a Pianist, an Athlete, and an all around nice person told me to write, so here I am writing. So thank you, DP, thank you for the encouragement.

Sure, I’m fully opening myself up to judgement. Sharing my words with the internet world makes me feel so, so vulnerable, but also in a strange way it is liberating. If you don’t like my writing style, stop reading me. If you don’t like my message, you can tell me… I’m a big girl and I can take it. If you don’t think that I’m formal enough, then you’re surely not going to like that I say the word “doneski” in one of my posts.

I’ve always been a closet bookworm. I’ve always loved to read. I’ve always loved to write poems for my nearest and dearest – sometimes funny, goofy poems and sometimes serious poems. I used to make my friends cards… smelly markers, construction paper and all. I still do make cards, but my scrapbooking skills have improved tenfold. I used to be hospitalized a lot as a child and as a way to kill time I would draw my nurses and doctors pictures or write them stories. The nurses and doctors would tell me that if I drew them another picture or wrote them another story, then I would be released and allowed to go home. That was music to my ears. It’s sure a lot more freeing to do what you want to do as a child than it is an adult… but I’m determined to do as I please regardless of other’s opinions or perceptions of me.

I used to be in French Immersion and in grade one I would take home armfuls of grade three french books to read for fun. I used to read all the time. I used to read at night time and I would get busted by my Mom who would tell me that reading in the dark is bad for my eyes. After I pretended to go back to sleep, I would reopen my book and get lost in the story all over again. I used to read all of my books, all of my sister’s books and I would re-read them from cover to cover, over and over and over again. My Mom would take me to the library and I would stock up and never want to return the books even though I’d read all of them.

I’ve always written. Always. Sometimes I write seriously, sometimes I write gibberish, sometimes I just write to clear my head. In grade six, I submitted one of my french poems into a contest. A few weeks later I received a book in the mail with my poem published. I never told anyone (besides my parents obviously) and John. I’m pretty shy, remember? The poem was about one nurse in particular who made me feel extra special during my hospital stays. Her name was Nicole.

My dear Grandma and I used to write each other letters from as far back as I can remember. That was something special between us… I have no idea how it started or why it started, but it continued on until she closed her eyes for the last time. I still have some of her letters in my “special box” and I often miss my pen pal.

In grade nine, while everybody moaned and groaned about having to write ten poems as an English assignment, deep down I was thrilled! My grade nine teacher was fantastic and has left a lasting impression on me after all of these years. He was great… he was funny (he had the greatest stories about his travels, one in particular about a rabbit), encouraging, supportive and he really made in a difference in my life. He wasn’t the typical English teacher that made you just answer comprehensive questions all year, he taught me a lot more than just that. So, for the assignment, I was unable to limit myself to just ten poems. I went on a spree, my writing voice finally had an out and I could not stop it! I submitted about 45 poems for the assignment. No exaggeration whatsoever. When my massive assignment was returned to me, my teacher had read and commented on every single one. Every. Single. One. He could have simply chosen ten randomly and marked those, but because he took the time and effort to read every single one – that made me feel special. It validated that maybe I do have something to say and people want to read it. I’ve send this man emails as an adult thanking him, but Mister (you know who you are) if you just happen to be reading this… here is my public thank you for planting the seed that my voice is worthy of being heard.

I’ve never been open about being a super book nerd because of the stigma. Being a kid and teenager is hard enough before you admit to going to the library for fun. One Sunday afternoon when I was at the library, one of my best friends phoned the house phone and my Mom told my friend that I was at the library… I remember when I got home my Mom told me this and I was a nervous wreck that my dirty secret got out. When I saw my friend, he did laugh that I was at the library but then he followed it up by a “that’s cool.” All the validation I needed.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be everything from a Paleontologist to a Nurse to a Hallmark card writer. As I got older, I was told by society that being a Hallmark card writer wasn’t a real job and that I had to chose something else. So, I did. A normal, corporate job with a pension, benefits, etc.

My Uncle was a journalist who wrote about controversial matter. He made it big time (he has his own Wiki page… if that’s not big time, then I don’t know what is). When he passed away, he was a Bureau Chief for one of the largest networks in Canada. Maybe this writing thing is in my blood after all.

So why did I start this blog? Because I enjoy writing, I enjoy sharing stories, I enjoy creating new things… plus I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t… so why not do!? When I have kids, I want to be able to look them in the eye and tell them to do whatever it is that they want to do without worrying about other’s judgements… I want to be able to look them in the eye, knowing that I too am doing the same. They say to lead by example, right?

I started this blog, my lovely, because I finally stopped telling myself that I couldn’t. And that in itself is a great, great feeling.

Lastly, one of my oldest and dearest friends recently sent me a Doctor Seuss quote that has being weighing on me heavily:

Thanks for reading and I hope you continue to read about our journey! Please share and/or follow as that is the greatest compliment of all.

When John and I started to dream about what life would be like in the US, it was so exciting! It almost felt as if we were kids playing “make believe”. Do you remember that game MASH? If you don’t know MASH, it’s a pencil and paper game that kids used to play (maybe there’s an app for it now haha) that would predict one’s future. By playing the game, one would find out who they were married to (if they were married at all), how many kids they’d have, the car they’d drive, what their career would be and yearly income. As the emails and phone calls fell into John’s lap, I couldn’t help but feel as if we were playing a grown up version of MASH.

Maybe we would end up in Texas! Then we could have a huge brick mansion and drive to Mexico!

Maybe we would end up in California! Then we could live along the beach!

Heck, maybe we would even end up in a place neither of would have ever imagined!

It was fun playing make believe with John. We didn’t tell anybody about the opportunities, as we weren’t entirely sure what the outcome was going to be. We weren’t entirely sure if we would end up actually moving out of Calgary or not, especially since we just bought a house a couple months prior. We also didn’t want to be swayed by others opinions, so we decided to just keep it our little secret.

After way too much googling, we discovered just how difficult it actually was to obtain a working visa, so we didn’t want to get our hopes up too, too high just in case nothing came of this. But, I couldn’t help it… my hopes were up so high that you would have to climb Mount Everest to knock them down. I have a tendency to get myself over excited about things and this was most definitely one of them.

I could not stop thinking about what could be. The unknown was a delicious mystery to me. Usually, John and I both love a plan. We like to know how things are going to be, when they are going to be, etc, etc. But for some reason, throwing our plan out the window seemed so exhilarating to me! I could not stop daydreaming about living in a new city, living in a new country, living a life that we never would have ever mapped out in our plan.

There was something so exhilarating about selling ALL of our things, getting rid of everything and starting from scratch. Starting fresh! We both knew that if we remained in Calgary our lives would be pretty predictable. We had a pretty clear idea of what our lives were going to look like in five, ten and twenty years down the road. We likely would remain in the gorgeous house that we just purchased, we would have had two kids, we both would have eventually climbed the ladder at our jobs. Our weeknights and weekends would likely look the same, with the exception of different kid activities. We would have spent so much of our time doing house and yard maintenance. We would have likely got Vietnamese for dinner from the same place every single Friday night because by the end of the week, I could hardly keep my eyes open until 8:00pm. Saturdays and Sundays would be running around doing errands, doing laundry, squeezing time in to see our friends. And if we were really lucky, we would be doing something nice one night just the two of us. But we would be too tired and exhausted to enjoy ourselves, and what we both really would have wanted was to be sitting on a couch with our feet up. We were only in our late twenties and we had a really tough time envisioning doing the exact same thing, in the exact same house for the rest of our careers. It seemed so boring to us. So conventional.

And so when we played “make believe” together, we dreamed. We allowed ourselves to fully let our imaginations run wild. We allowed ourselves to think of how we wanted our lives to look without thinking of reasons as to why they couldn’t look that way. We let our minds run freely and we discovered that the life in Calgary was not the life that we both dreamed of. We dreamed of having free time together. Of exploring more. Of trying new foods. Of going on road trips to new places. Of doing things that we would never do if we lived in Calgary… like get into tennis, like paddle boarding, like kayaking…. We wanted to be alive and not let chores hold us back from living our dreams.

And so, when the opportunity came to move to Chicago, we realized that this was our chance to live the life we wanted to live. To throw our “boring” life to the wolves. To live on the wild side. This was our chance to do everything we talked about doing. This was our open door to lead us to a life that we weren’t able to predict. A life that would offer us more time for just the two of us. A life that would lead us more time to actually live.

And so, we jumped in face first. We dove right in. We weren’t sure that we would ever have this chance again and we were not going to miss out on it. Maybe we dove too soon, maybe things moved too quickly… but in retrospect, I would not change the way things happened for us in any way.

When John’s offer was finally unconditional, we only had two weeks to move. We only had two weeks to sell all of our things, to quit our jobs, to rent a U-Haul trailer, to deal with selling a house. We only had two weeks to pack whatever we could bring with us in our car and trailer. Two weeks to get the proper paperwork in order. Two weeks to renew our passports so they didn’t expire before our visas would. Two weeks to close shop in Canada. And every single day, there was always something new that we discovered that we had yet to do… such as get a letter of compliance from our vehicle’s manufacturer. And without the help of two friends in particular, we are unsure if we would have been able to do it. Two weeks isn’t a lot of time when you are both still working full time jobs. There really are only so many hours in a day, and we hardly slept for those two weeks.

Those two weeks were when everything suddenly everything became real. We were no longer playing MASH, we were dealing with real life. With real life consequences. At one point, we were homeless and jobless. That is terrifying for people who like to have a plan. The moment when I realized that I had actually quit my job and that the house we were living in was no longer ours was so beyond strange and scary that I can’t come up with words to describe those feelings. We were a bundle of emotions that I have never felt before in my life. All at the same time, I was overwhelmed, beyond terrified, stupidly excited, stressed out of my mind, anxious, yet thrilled at the thought of what was to come our way.

But alas, we did it. Somehow, we did it. We finished our last day of work, came home and run around like sixteen chickens with their heads cut off. We slept for only a few hours that night (if we slept at all) on an air mattress. We both knew that in the morning, we would be leaving Calgary. We would be leaving our home. Our lives that we were comfortable living. Our lives that were “safe”.

And so in the morning, we did a few last minute things and we were on our way. On our way to living the life we dreamed of. Living the life we didn’t think was possible. Living a life where we had no idea where we would be in five, ten, twenty years. Living a life that wasn’t necessarily “safe.”

And today, I am happy to report to you, that we are both living a life with a whole new purpose and meaning. We are living a life where we had no idea it was possible to be as happy as we are. We are living a life where we only buy groceries for the week. We are living a life where we literally spend hours upon hours of quality time together. HOURS OF QUALITY TIME TOGETHER!! We never would have had that in Calgary. Our weekends are FUN! We DO things together. We explore, we go on adventures, we walk mile upon mile until the bottoms of our feet are raw. We smile so much more, we laugh together, we try new things. We feel like we are dating again. We are more in love than ever.

We dove in feet first, hand in hand, and we are happier than we have ever been in our lives. We have only been here for just over two months, but we are going confidently in the direction of our dreams, and living the life that we imagined. Although it was a scary decision and we miss our friends and our family, we have absolutely zero regrets. Isn’t it true that in the end, my lovely, we only regret the chances we didn’t take?

It’s Canada Day, WOO HOO!

So let’s celebrate with some fun facts about our home and native land, shall we!?

Here we go, eh!

1. It’s all thanks to a little bear from Canada that inspired Winnie The Pooh

2. Canada officially got its own national flag on February 15, 1965 — almost 100 years after it became a country (in 1867).

3. No cows in Canada are given artificial hormones for milk production. Which means no dairy products, like milk, cheese, or yogurt, produced in Canada contain hormones either!

4. Kraft Dinner (“KD”) is the top-selling grocery item in the country. Canadians consume 55% more than Americans do. But Americans don’t call it “KD”, they call it “mac n cheese”

5. Canadians say sorry so much because of this: We have an “Apology Act.” It allows an apology in court to be a sign of compassion and empathy, not guilt.

6. Canada’s post office receives millions of letters addressed to “Santa Claus, North Pole” each year. They respond to each one as Mrs. Claus. They’ve claimed the address “Santa Claus, North Pole, H0H 0H0.”

7. An Ontario man invented Hawaiian pizza.

8. Alberta is the only region in the entire world free of Norwegian rats.

9. Studies find Canadians to be the second-happiest people in the world. And they’re only getting happier!

10. Peanut Butter. Probably one of the most important food innovations of all time. First patented by Canadian Marcellus Gilmore Edson in 1884.

11. We Have the World’s Safest Highways (for Animals). There are million-dollar highway overpasses in Banff National Park which have been used by grizzly and black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars, moose, elk, deer, bighorn sheep, wolverine and lynx.

13. We invented the Ceasar. The drink, not the salad.

14. Cheddar is the most popular cheese in Canada. On average Canadians consume 23.4 pounds per person annually. Cheese keeps us warm.

15. There are more doughnut shops in Canada per capita than any other country. Go Tim Hortons Go!

HAPPY CANADA DAY, MY LOVELIES! Don’t stumble over too many beavers today, get too many cavities from drinking syrup, forget to tie up your Moose, choke on your poutine, BUT do celebrate with a beer or four!!

They always say to wear clean underwear, but nobody ever says to not wear your ratty Walmart shorts that are over a decade old to go play tennis. Nobody ever says not to wear your crap clothes out in public in case a photographer asks to take photos of you. I wonder why nobody has ever warned me of this…?

Oh!

Because it doesn’t happen!

Except it did.

Today.

In Chicago.

There are tennis courts really close to our apartment, so last week, through the magic of online shopping, the tennis fairy delivered racquets and balls to our door (well, the doorman, but let’s not get into semantics shall we?)

It was a warm, sunny afternoon and we made our way over to the tennis courts. The tennis courts are not even a hop, skip and a jump away from Buckingham fountain, the Magnificent Mile, the beautiful Lake Michigan. There is always tons of touristy stuff going on around there, but we wanted to escape and go get our Serena Williams on.

I actually took this shot

Walking to the courts, John says that he gets to be Maria Sharapova and he tells me that I can be Venus Williams. We talk a big talk, but neither of us have played tennis since our high school days…

This is how John chews his gum too, so I didn’t put up much of a fight

We get to the courts and rally around, never intending to actually play a game. Just hit the ball back and forth and if the balls stays in the court for 30 seconds that’s victory in itself! From a past injury, I’m unable to run or move the way that I used to be able to, so I do a lot of serving and John does a lot of returning.

Ooops, wrong sport

Naturally, John looks great. I’m trying to convince him to try the ballet class with to me to show his guns a “real workout”

As I am getting ready the serve the ball, I notice a man nearby. The man is walking, and he looks like he is coming our way. I don’t really think anything of it, and think that maybe he forgot something from an earlier game. Just before I actually serve, I hear:

“Excuse Miss, may I take your photos?”

At first, I don’t think that he is speaking to me. I turn my head and realize that his full attention is on me. I can’t help but look around and realize that I am the only person he could be talking to.

I can’t help myself and I blurt out :“Why!?”

He tells me that he is a sports photographer and would like to take some tennis shots.

The first thing that crosses my mind is that I am wearing ratty shorts that I purchased when I was 16 years old from Walmart for probably $10. They have been through a lot with me. They have been swimming in lakes and rivers, they have been camping, they have been slept in. They are my go to comfy shorts that are garbage worthy. Why couldn’t I be wearing Lululemon like a normal person?! It’s just not my nature I suppose…

You

ME

I shout to John across the net that this man is going to be taking our photos, and I see John look at the five other tennis courts where there are actually quite good tennis players. They have the fancy racquets (our racket strings still had the big ‘W’ in the middle… a true sign of amateurs), they have the proper sunglasses, the proper grunting, and the proper footwork.

I’m thinking the same thing John is thinking “why the hell did he choose us?!”

So, John and I resume “playing” tennis and we can’t help but have our competitive sides sweep over. Suddenly, we are no longer just rallying but we both feel like we are auditioning for lead roles in Wimbledon. We are both desperately trying to impress the photographer… why? I don’t know, it’s just what happens when a photographer asks to take photos of you.

We are both exhausted, drenched in sweat, only now playing tennis so that the photographer could take photos. I can’t help but wonder if he is any good at photoshop and that he if can fix any of those jiggly spots of mine. I cross my fingers that he is a photoshop wiz.

John and I finally muster up the courage to tell the photographer that we are finished. I tell some lie that we have somewhere to be, and then we hurry out of there. We hustle so fast that you would have thought that we were escaping the big bad wolf. We grab our things and bolt right on out of there JUST IN CASE the photographer asks us if we want to see his photos or he offers to send them to us… now, my lovely, there are some things in this world better left unseen and to me, those pictures are one of them.

Thanks for stopping in to read the second part of “The Not So Warm Welcome – Justin Bieber, We Blame YOU”. In the first part, I shared some of the struggles of our journey and in this second part, I’m sharing some more. We prepared for this journey as best as we could, but we discovered along the way that there are things that you just can’t prepare for. And yes, Justin Bieber is still to blame…

What are you even doing!?

Driver’s License
John and I had 30 days from the time we entered the US to get new State driver’s licenses. I spent a morning at the DMV office in person to ensure that we are taking the appropriate steps. I get our booklet to study, find out appointments to write the exam are first come, first serve, and so, on Saturday morning, we drive over an hour to a suburb to write our exam. We get to the DMV on Saturday morning prior to the office even opening and the line is outrageous. The kind of outrageous line that curls around the building outside.

When we finally make it inside the building and to the front desk, we proudly tell the lady that we are there to write our exams. She tells me that I’m not allowed to write. But John writes and passes, yay!

The lady tells me that I have to make an appointment to write for mine. So I say “okay, let’s make an appointment.” Not that easy. She gives me a phone number that I have to call first thing in the morning in order to get an appointment. Every single morning I call the number. Every single morning. My record was calling 62 times in one morning. Naturally, I couldn’t get through and of course it’s impossible to actually speak to a person. I call in the afternoon to find out how this game works, and I find out that there is a three month waiting period and you have to have lived in Illinois for at least 12 months prior to even write the damn exam.

That was the toughest part for me. And no, my Canadian license and insurance are no longer valid, I tried to make that happen every which way possible, but it just doesn’t work that way. Sweet talking only gets you so far in life I suppose.

We Have Made People Quit Their Day Jobs
Now, I’m not entirely sure we can take all the credit for this. But it’s true, two people have upright quit their jobs as soon as they started to get entangled into our tango dance. Our situation is so complex, it seems as if nobody we encounter has ever dealt with our situation before. Nobody knows what to do with us! The way that most Canadians move to the US is that they stay with their same employer or they are not deciding to actually LIVE in the US and still technically live in Canada. But not us. John changed employers and we technically are not living in Canada presently. This complicates things to a whole new level that we were not aware of until we were in the midst of things. Apparently, from a business perspective, this is really complicated as well. We had the US auto insurance lady quit leaving us high and dry, and then also our international tax accountant quit leaving us higher and drier. Neither knew how to answer our questions, nor did they point us in the direction of someone who may be able to actually assist us. They clearly didn’t want to get tangled into our web. I don’t blame them, I would have quit as well.

Now, Canada, you haven’t exactly been Mr. Perfect either over there, so don’t be too smug…

Hold off on tooting’ that horn just yet…

Here are just a couple of Canadians struggles we’ve been dealing with:

Mortgage Payments
Our mortgage payments were still being withdrawn from our Canadian bank account even after all the legal docs where signed, sealed and delivered. John called the bank with which our mortgage was through and the lady on the phone didn’t believe that John was who he said he was, so she wouldn’t talk to him. He passed all the security questions and secret passwords and everything, but she thought that he was lying for some reason. That’s annoying.

So I called and the lady I spoke to tried to blame our lawyer as being the reason why money was still coming out of our account. So we contacted our lawyer who tells us that there’s nothing on his end that would affect that. So I call the bank back and finally, I get to speak to somebody who actually wants to help us. And yes, I was friendly and polite before (I’m still Canadian after all). So, I spend two hours on the phone with this lady who admits that they have no idea why money is being taken out of account, etc, etc but our money will be returned to us in 30 to 60 days.

It’s sure funny how they are really good at taking money out of your account, but not so quick in returning it to you.

Canadian Security SystemOh Goodness. Where to begin… essentially, when we found out we were selling our home, we were told by our security system that we had two options to terminate our contract:

1) Pay it out

2) Transfer the contract to the new buyers

We ended up transferring the contract to the new buyers, but wouldn’t you know it… money is being taken out of our Canadian bank account again for the month of May. We moved in mid-April, which is when the contract was transferred. We get into contact with the security system and tell them there was an error on their end and to please credit the money back to us.

After probably at least 75 emails, we still to this date have not received our money back. This company is worse to deal with than the US utilities company (mentioned in Part One)…their customer service is the absolute worst. And at this point, we don’t care about the money anymore, it’s simply the principle. Just recently, we receive an email from the company with a PDF attachment. We open the attachment assuming that finally we are somehow getting our money back… only to find out that they HAVE SENT US A $100 INVOICE FOR NO GOOD REASON AT ALL! Seriously…. Good thing we’ve kept all of the email correspondence.

Is this a joke?

Those are just a few things that we have dealt with that we didn’t expect would occur. There are more, but this has turned into an essay. If you are still reading, thank you, my lovely. I like you. You are the greatest reader of all time.

Keep in mind that this all happened in a really short amount of time and it was so overwhelming and stressful that we questioned if what we were doing was the right thing…. But I remember one of the last things my Dad told us before we left was “if you’re going, you’re going to make it work. There’s no other option”. And that has stayed in the back of my mind like glue. We are making it work and we hope that one day we look back and find humor in our tales. But not yet, it’s still too soon.

I bet my Dad had no idea that he was paraphrasing Eminem

It also didn’t help that around this time, almost 80% of Americans we spoke to who found out that we moved from Canada asked us “Why?” And at that point, how do you answer such a question when you are asking yourself the same question? Now that the dust has settled, I can answer that question more confidently. Everytime we are in a store and we see how inexpensive beer and vodka is, John and I look at each other, smile, and say “ahh this is why we moved… this makes everything worthwhile”. And then we purchase a Fred Flintstone sized bottle of vodka for under $20 and life is good again. Hey, it’s not like I can drive anyways!

Cheers!

As always, thank you for reading! The greatest compliment of all is a “follow” or “share”, and I appreciate each and every one that I get, so thank you in advance, my lovelies!